How Facebook's news ban helped a Regina garbage company be voted 'best online news'

Warning: this story contains discussion of suicide.

When Shylo Stevenson wants to know what's happening in his city of Regina, he fires up Facebook and heads over to what some might consider an unlikely source Just Bins Waste Disposal, a local garbage company.

"It's amazing," he said, noting that the company posts scenes of accidents or fires very quickly, or even as they are unfolding.

Recently, he saw a fire at a local ice cream shop and stopped to check it out. He noticed someone was already filming the scene with a drone. By the time he got back to his office, Just Bins's social media pages had already posted about the fire.

"I don't think they have dedicated people assigned to this, but it's just anybody that catches footage and sends it in. It's just crazy how they get their footage," he said.

In the past, he'd tune into one of three channels to get his TV news. Now, he only get the news online, specifically through Just Bins's social media.

The company has been criticized for making jokes at the expense of people who are drunk, using drugs or appear to be homeless, and some who have made complaints to Just Bins and been interviewed by the CBC have described those posts and racist comments that follow as "punching down."

Stevenson works closely with vulnerable populations in the city and said he believes these posts bring attention to addictions as a pernicious problem in the city. But at the same time, posting faces of people who are experiencing hard times can feel exploitative, he said.

"They air their garbage," he said, noting social media has become a "free-for-all" for news since traditional mediawas banned from using certain social media platforms."One man's garbage is another man's treasure, is how I guess the world will look at it."

Filling a social media news void

As news organizations face stiff challenges all over the world,Canadian news companies received a huge blow last year. Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta, banned the sharing of stories from Canadian outlets in August 2023 in response to federal legislation. That ban remains in effect.

• Canadian media trained audiences to use Facebook. With Meta blocking news, what's next?

Just Bins has stepped into the resulting gap.

It began by posting sly jokes and memes poking fun at Regina and surrounding areas, but over time has increasingly shared crowdsourced security footage, photographs and videos of emergency or crime scenes.

Just Bins also has a drone of its own. Itsfootage has prompted some concern from Regina Police Service (RPS), which said flying drones over crime scenes and emergency operations is a "safety concern for our members and the public but also a privacy concern." Flying over such scenes flouts Transport Canada safety rules.

"We are currently reviewing this matter," RPS said in a statement.

Just Bins has been first to report some local news stories. For instance, it posted a leaked City of Regina memo that noted that a municipal corporation was on the hook for $8-million in repayments to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Traditional news media (including CBC) would later file stories about the CRA repayment.

WATCH |We took to the streets of Regina to ask residents how they stay informed:

How do you get your news?

2 months ago

Duration 2:23

We took to the streets of Regina to ask residents how they stay informed.

Prairie Dog Magazine editor Stephen Whitworth had a chuckle late last year during his publication's annual Best Of Regina awards, as Just Bins was nominated for "best online news."

"Maybe people had a laugh because obviously Just Bins is not a news outlet, although they do provide raw, raw, unanalyzed information to the public," he said.

Whitworth debated whether to let the nomination stand, but as someone who considers himself "cheeky and irreverent," he decided to approve it. The company went on to win the category by popular vote.

Just Bins proudly celebrated its win on social media and sold merchandise capitalizing on it. Its followers promptly sent celebratory comments on the death of mainstream media, writing things like, "Suck it CTV News," "Much deserved" and as a twist on the "DefundCBC" hashtag "#fundjustbinsdisposal."

Who runs Just Bins?

Just Bins owner Adam Snook declined to do a full formal interview, but said he's aware the company's posts push boundaries and have at times gotten pushback. He said the company is giving people the unvarnished truth of what's happening in Regina arsons, public suicides, public displays of addiction in a way that mainstream media isn't.

"It's not easy, but it's reality," he said, adding that his company's posts show how society is and where it's going.

Snook spoke about himself and the company on a podcast released in 2021 by a company called Canadian Rental Service. He said he moved back to Regina from Alberta to be closer to family, and purchased Just Bins in 2018. He said social media was a way to distinguish his rental company from other larger players in the market.

"You have to be creative. It really is something that gives you an advantage over the big guys is your ability to be creative and funny," he said on the episode.

Even at that time, he saw a huge part of his business driven by social media. He said he was marketing to a younger generation that is less interested in finding the cheapest option and more interested in renting from a company that captivates their interest.

Just Bins has also been able to parlay its online presence into paid sponsorships and merchandise sales.

"We try to be clever, witty, sometimes a little too much maybe," he told the podcast host, chuckling.

"If anybody goes to our site, we actually have a list of rules for Karens on there: if you're going to be a Karen complainer, here's what you're going to get. We've built a huge following off doing stuff like that."

The company has followed through on those rules, posting the names of the people it labels "Karens" those who've complained that posts are racist or exploitative. Just Bins's followers inevitably blast those voices of criticism.

It's unclear if the company fact-checks or verifies any of the information it is sent before posting it. In February, someone sent the company a video of students from a local school running through the snow. Just Bins shared it, reporting it as a "bear spray" attack. That social media post would later be edited to clarify that instead, someone had found a toy gun that looked like a handgun.

Just Bins made a follow-up post, writing that the student who had sent in the video had been suspended from school. Just Bins then named the school principal and encouraged its followers to tell him "not to shoot the messenger." Followers jumped in to say they'd done as directed by calling the school.

CBC spoke to a few people who had been named and had their personal information or work email addressesshared by Just Bins. They described being signed up for spam emails and sent hateful messages from Just Bins followers, with one calling it "cyberbullying."

Boundary-pushing posts

Tamara Cherry, an independent journalist who has researched the effects of journalism on trauma, described Just Bins's sharing of personal information as one of several problematic actions.

In June, the company posted a series of pictures on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, showing a public suicide and what Cherry believed was an image of a covered body.

"If that's what we're looking at, that is awful. It is awful for so many reasons," she said, adding there's well-documented research that showing suicide can increase the risk of more suicides.

"If we are looking at the image of somebody who died by suicide and shared in just such a callous, completely unthoughtful way, there is no good that can come from that."

At the same time, Cherry acknowledged that Just Bins is feeding a desire that exists in the public.

"Supply and demand, right? And if there wasn't the demand for this sort of 'shocking or sensational' content, the supply would not be there," she said, adding that the account has a lot of followers for a reason.

She compared it to rubbernecking at the site of a crash.

"This is the sort of account that I think many people would call their guilty pleasure. And there's a reason that the word guilty is in there, because we know that it's not really a healthy or a moral, ethical thing that we're doing by consuming this content."

Whether it's a suicide or a murder scene, responsible journalists should consider the public interest of what they're reporting on and the potential harm, Cherry said.

Whitworth, like Cherry, saw Just Bins's post on a public suicide.

A few weeks later, a friend sent him an obituary of an acquaintance that he used to see and talk to regularly. Whitworth connected the June death with the date of Just Bins' posting.

"This is how I found out that my friend had killed themselves and I didn't even know it was my friend at the time," he said.

"It's just really weird and surreal and horrible."

He said he has had time to think since Just Bins won the title of Best Online News in his publication and doesn't think it was wrong to let the nomination stand. In his eyes, the problems news companies are facing go far beyond competition from a meme factory, a reality he knows too well. His own publication has had to go entirely online, and he said it remains to be seen if it can survive another year.

"Facebook is killing news. Social media companies are killing news. A lack of public investment is killing news, both public news and private news companies. News operations being run by Wall Street and just harvested for profit is killing news," he said.

Whitworth said people should be deeply concerned by all these issues, but seem apathetic about the loss of news media and what he sees as the resulting erosion of democracy.

"I don't think Canadians know what they're losing. I think they're asleep, completely asleep at the switch here."

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, here's where to get help:

• Canada'sSuicide Crisis Helpline: Call or text 988.
• Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868. Text 686868. Live chat counselling onthe website.
• Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention:Find a 24-hour crisis centre.
• This guide from theCentre for Addiction and Mental Healthoutlines how to talk about suicide with someone you're worried about.